Then, of the Word, after having proved in his way that the ideas of the true, the beautiful, and the good are necessary and absolute ideas, and identified them with the impersonal reason, and the impersonal reason with the Logos, he asks what then? Are they God? No, gentlemen, they are not God, he answers, but the Word of God, thus plainly denying the Word of God to be God. Does that prove he knew intimately Catholic theology? What says the reviewer of Cousin's doctrine of inspiration and revelation? That doctrine is, that inspiration and revelation are the spontaneous operations of the impersonal reason as distinguished from the reflective operations of the personal reason, which is pure rationalism. Is that Catholic theology, or does it indicate much knowledge of Catholic theology, to say it is in consonance with that theology? In his criticism on the Alexandrians or Neoplatonists, he blames them for representing the multiple, the finite, what they call creation, as a fall, and for not placing them on the same line with unity, the infinite, or God considered in himself. Is that in accordance with Catholicity, or is it a proof of his knowledge of Catholic theology to assert that it is, and to challenge the world to prove the contrary? But enough. No Catholic theologian, not dazzled by Cousin's style, or carried away by his glowing eloquence and brilliant generalizations, can read his philosophical works without feeling that he was no Christian believer, and that he neither knew nor respected Catholic faith or theology. In his own mind he reduced Catholic faith to the primitive beliefs of the race, inspired by the impersonal reason, and as he never contradicted these as he understood them, he persuaded himself that his philosophy did not impugn Christianity and the church. {112} 9. The reviewer says: "One more extract, by way of capping the climax. Seemingly ignorant of Cousin's criticism upon De Bonald's now exploded theory of language, and his exposition of De Biran's, the critic thinks, 'He would have done well to have studied more carefully the remarkable work of De Bonald; had he done so, he might have seen that the reflective reason cannot operate without language.' Has this man not read what Cousin has written, on the origin, purpose, uses, and effects of language, that he represents him as believing that the reflective reason can operate without language, without signs!" (P. 547.)